


Ameliorate

by SoyCaptain



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Cathartic fic, Dark, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Major end game spoilers, Non-Explicit Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Too Many Metaphors, a non-normative depiction of ocd, a pretentious writing style, analytical akira, neurodiverse akira
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 18:50:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13619502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoyCaptain/pseuds/SoyCaptain
Summary: "Joker was a Metaverse manifestation of what Akira longed to be: confident, competent, and courageous. He certainly felt none of the above as his body racked with muffled sobs in the dim, artificial glow of Leblanc’s patron bathroom."Akira's resilient, meticulous thinking had beared his weight for years. But every machine eventually rusts and he feels the acute oxidation seep through with the memories of The Interrogation. Dealing with his own shit had never been Akira's strong suit, but he must choose between a passive Enough or an affirmation of Willing if he wants to survive this. He has plenty of motivation between a found family, a sense of duty, and flowering affections.Right?





	Ameliorate

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS THAT I HAVE PLACED IN THE END NOTES (to prevent spoilers). This fic gets very dark***
> 
> I have seen others tackle the issue of Akira's torture, but I have never been satisfied. So this fic was born. It is a very self-indulgent and cathartic way for me to Deal With My Own Shit. Hopefully others will enjoy it as well. I have not written fanficiton in a long time and my writing style can be confusing, so I apologize in advance, haha. 
> 
> Also, Neurodiverse Akira is very important to me and I just really love Shukita. 
> 
> The story is expected to be 3-4 chapters that I already have planned out. So stay tuned.

_Ameliorate_ or _A Hymn to Enough_

Chapter 1

 

As much as he wanted to be, Akira wasn’t Joker. Yeah, he was _technically_ Joker in the sense that they shared a mind and body, but Akira Kurusu and Joker were on completely different wavelengths. Joker was a Metaverse manifestation of what Akira longed to be: confident, competent, and courageous. He certainly felt none of the above as his body racked with muffled sobs in the dim, artificial glow of Leblanc’s patron bathroom. He was alright earlier, having been welcomed warmly and excitedly by his friends—the concern easing from their features as he assured them he was fine.

But he was not fine. As the drugs waned, they left a clearing in his brain with substantial room for contemplation of a terrible series of events. Twenty-four hours that he could remember approximately half of, and that was if he was being generous. He still felt the interrogation room and not just in the form of constant, widespread pain. His brain was bombarded with images and he could not analyze the events beyond _royally fucked up._ That was apparently enough for his sympathetic nervous system to kick into gear—evoking a breakdown that Akira barely managed to conceal before closing the café and sending Morgana upstairs to wait for him.

With a conglomerate of intense and horrifying emotions lodged in his diaphragm, breakdown he did. Post-vomit, he crumpled to the floor of the bathroom, stifling sobs with a shaking hand clasped tightly over his mouth, jaw rigid and teeth clenched. His efforts to swallow the sobs garnered  excruciating pressure against his swollen ribcage, which already protested from the vomiting and sloppy fetal position he had knotted himself into. A solution of tears, snot, and blood slicked his hand and he was unfazed, his threshold for disgust surpassed hours ago with the precursory examination of his body. He felt powerless to the ineffable force of anxiety that seized him—impressive considering his track record with tragedy.

_Pull it together, Akira. Calm Down._ The repetition helped control the turbulence, even if just a little. With some rudimentary reflection between pulses, he realized the interrogation room changed him, but realized, almost immediately, that it didn’t matter. He still had a mission to do, a role to fill, and a group of people desperately depending on him. Moreover, he _chose_ this. He chose to be the bait and knew what was going to happen. He felt his stomach somersault again at the thought of any teammate going through this.

_Calm Down._

He had to ride out the tsunami of dread raging in his chest, and eventually, the tides reached their finale—eliciting a wince and cough, but no more sobs.  Though there was rumbling applause and rooting for an encore within him, it was manageable. His breathing was passable and Morgana might pick up on a difference, but not enough to warrant distress. He could finally hoist himself, with a significant amount of pain and aid from the wall, from the lightly dusted linoleum. He was here. He was breathing. And he resigned that it was as good as it was going to get for the night.

The old pipes hummed as he ran cold water to combat the flush and puff of his face—well, flush and puff beyond what was expected. He met his eyes in the mirror and was unnerved by their dark, tunnel-like appearance that, for a split second, flashed him to Mementos with their likeness. Mementos made a little more sense as humanity’s collective palace. The realization made the fear that had taken up residence in torso pulsate, but he turned his attention elsewhere to subdue another cataclysm. He didn’t have the time, he never had the time for inconvenient meltdowns, and he chastised himself again while tending to the blood and snot tap in the middle of his face. He punctuated his extended bathroom trip with a retrieval of smudged, discarded glasses and another flush, hoping he wasn’t as transparent as he felt.

“Hey! Took you long enough. I bet you’re tired, let’s go to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow,” Morgana greeted him from his usual spot by the stairs. Akira counted the cat’s response as a success and got ready for bed with no protest.

Tired did not begin to describe Akira’s exhaustion and he fell asleep almost immediately. But combined with the pain and his dreams offering no solace, his sleep was restless. Even the praise from Igor and the twins did nothing to assuage the endless prickling of dread and pain. When he wasn’t in the Velvet Room, he was back in the interrogation chamber. The events playing out how he remembered them without the usual, unreal twist dreams took; a cyclical kind of torment, flipping through real scenes like he was trapped in a hazy, old film projector. _Indistinct faces of men twice his age, twice his size. Laughing. Hands groping. Burning. Blood._

He was back. Soft streams of dawn filtered through his window, spotlighting aloft dust particles. He gasped, realizing he had been holding his breath, his abdomen scolding him with sharp dopplers of pain—likely exacerbated by being jerked into an upright position. His breaths still came in gasps, wheezing their way through inflammation and pulmonary bruising. Morgana pawed at his arm, drawing Akira’s attention to its rigid shaking and gripping.

“Akira, are you okay?” he whispered, sleep still heavy in his voice. When Akira didn’t answer, he inquired again. “Nightmare?” But by the tone of his voice, Morgana already knew the answer, being a veteran of less-than-ephemeral nightmares.  

Akira felt paralyzed in a way he thought was reserved for the Metaverse. He couldn’t move, eyes fixated on dawn-light sweeping his floorboards. Breathing coming faster, shorter, harder—wavering, wheezing. He hadn’t realized Morgana had left his side and was startled when he hopped back on the bed, crinkling packet in mouth. He heard and felt Morgana struggle for a few seconds while he tried to open whatever package he brought with him. A sudden coolness on his back; Morgana was carefully smearing an ointment with his tail and within seconds, Akira felt the paralysis lift. His breathing evened and he turned to meet Morgana’s concerned eyes and an empty packet of Takemi’s Relax Gel.

They were silent for a few seconds before Akira muttered a quiet thank you and averted his eyes back ahead—ashamed at his own weakness, incompetence, the fact that he had never even considered using Relax Gel outside of the Metaverse. The floorboards were completely illuminated now, conspicuously revealing Akira’s priorities and Kawakami’s absence. Morgana was the one to break the silence, rarely bashful when it came to awkward situations between them. “Do you want to talk about i- “, he started, but was cut off by Akira’s hurried response.

“No. Don’t worry, I’m alright. Let’s eat breakfast.” He sounded mechanical, almost inhuman. The change he noticed the night before more evident now. He hoped it wasn’t as obvious as it felt as he swiveled out of bed for the day, the familiar aroma of coffee motivating him. He was intent on putting as much distance between himself and that dream as possible.

And he did an alright job of it. The day was as busy as Morgana said it would be and Akira’s general malaise seemed undetected by his confidants. He still felt a hangover-like melancholy hovering over him, unsure if it was caused by the drug or the panic attack from the night/morning. Maybe both.  Probably both. Akira decided he wasn’t going to worry about it until he absolutely had to. That time was not now. He covertly applied another Relax Gel before sleeping that night, just in case.

***

His conviction to avoid the inevitable was strong and he managed to divorce himself from psychological chaos for a couple weeks. Stealing Shido’s treasure became a welcome distraction and Akira worked on strengthening his bonds with others tirelessly. He poured himself into every facet of his life that he could, allowing exhaustion to propel him straight to sleep every night with no time for rumination.

Of course, he didn’t feel normal, he didn’t feel much at all. Couldn’t afford to.  When he awoke the morning of the 24th, the day after the revelation about Shido, he didn’t feel the looming panic of the days prior, but a numbness. Starting that day, his life was like a bleary dream he waded through as a passive participant—like someone else was making his decisions, chatting with his friends, and exploring the Metaverse. He watched life unfold at a safe distance as his mind favored processing over feeling, like one of Futaba’s supercomputers. A husk moving through the necessary motions, vaguely reminiscent of Okumura’s robot slaves. It wasn’t a good way to live, and he hoped it wasn’t permanent, but at least he wasn’t feeling what he felt the night he returned from the police station. He could perform what was needed and that was _enough._

His confidants seemed oblivious. He considered that his moderate, observational tendencies of the Real World gave him an advantage at deception—he could keep up a semblance of normalcy with minimal effort. And though he felt guilty for it, he knew it was in everyone’s best interest. He didn’t want to be another thing to worry about, the accidental straw that broke the camel’s back for one of his teammates. He could handle a bit of pain, a mind-body disconnect, and intrusive self-deprecating thoughts as the world seemed like it was crumbling under his feet. He didn’t know if his teammates could and he didn’t want to find out.

His body was mostly healed by the time they got to the core of Shido’s palace. Not that it would have stopped him anyway, but he was glad to be unhindered—the anxiety surrounding potential incompetence, amplified by injuries, was quieted enough to push down with the rest of his anxieties. And though his body was marbled with scar tissue, his friends seemed satisfied with his recovery. Akira wondered if they came to an unspoken consensus to refrain from mentioning November 20th more than required in general strategizing. He didn’t know whether to feel thankful or alone. He decided on neither.

Another tactic he devised to avoid emotional ruin involved his dreams. Or his lack of dreams courtesy of the Velvet Room. When his brain demanded dream, he sought refuge there—favoring the harshness of Caroline and Justine over the catacombic interrogation room replica preserved in his psyche. The torture loomed at the precipice of his consciousness, and though the Velvet Room was not comfortable, it was comforting enough. It allowed him to incorporate his newly habitual, pseudo-aloof processing as a strategy in persona creation. Igor seemed only mildly perturbed by Akira’s newfound desire to access the Velvet Room via dream, but not enough to bar him from it.

***

They successfully stole Masayoshi Shido’s treasure on December 14th. All that was left to do was await his confession and allow Sae to work her magic. The election results would be announced in three days and he could only hope Shido would confess before then, seemingly unlikely as it was.

The waiting game was never Akira’s favorite and his current state of affairs made it border on excruciating. His inability to go to school had only been a minor inconvenience when he was always moving to ensure the success of the Shido mission, but twiddling his thumbs left an uncomfortably large margin for rumination. He felt agoraphobic in his own mind, exposed and vulnerable to panoptic, malicious memories. Nowhere to hide.

Akira had spent his afternoon gardening with Haru and returned to an empty attic—as Morgana had recently made it a habit to give Akira more space, especially when he was spending time with others. Ordinarily, he would have attributed it to Morgana investigating their world and searching for answers, but it quickly warped into anxious speculation.

Did Morgana feel awkward after the nightmare incident and that was why he had been distant? He had thought nothing could be awkward between them anymore, but maybe he was wrong. Another miscalculation. _My fault, mea culpa._ No, he couldn’t go down this path. Not while there was still possibility for danger.

His mind started to race through the horrors of the past weeks before it landed on Goro Akechi—a topic he had been exerting tremendous energy to ignore. Akechi’s death had been heaped onto the cumulation of recent tragedy and acted as a catalyst for interrogation room themed visions and a whole slew of self-deprecation.

He tried to ground himself as he slumped to the floor, back against the bed, head cast back. His eyes were cast asunder, as if he was pleading to the universe—to whatever god would listen. _Calm down. Focus. Control your emotions. Be the leader they need. Be Joker._ His grounding didn’t seem to be successful as his thoughts shifted toward defeat again. _Why can’t you be Joker all the time? Why do you have to be weak? Without the Metaverse, without the strength of others, you’re nothing. It’s pathetic._

He was crying again as he felt self-loathing seethe within. And with the seething, the memories he had worked tirelessly to push away coalesced and tumbled from the precipice to right before his eyes. Not even proper memories, but incomprehensible fragments of feelings and images. Terrible feelings and hazy images. _The drugs did their fucking job, I guess._ He briefly wished the drugs had been a bit more potent. That he remembered nothing at all.

No, a good portion of his hang-up was the ambiguity. There were gaps where he knew something awful and depraved happened to him—his body was covered in proof—but he was only given broken half-memories that meant virtually nothing. Those fragments seemed oddly fitting for someone like him. _I thought I was beyond this now._

He bit the inside of his cheek until an all-too-familiar metallic taste helped complement the snapshots stuck on repeat. _Calm down._ He forced his sobs back into his chest—Sojiro was still downstairs with customers and the last thing the man needed was his regulars being scared away by his unstable ward in the attic. _Calm down._ He clawed at the floorboards beneath him, increasingly desperate for grounding—any escape form the Hell unfurling behind his eyelids. _Calm down. Think about something else. Anything else._

Did he have a palace? No, persona users couldn’t have palaces. He didn’t know if that was a comfort or a curse. If not distortion, then what? It must be his own doing—meaning he was the only one who could fix it. He wondered why he had been given the Wildcard when he was so weak—though he did a good job deluding himself for a couple months. Maybe that’s why; he could fool himself better than anyone else he knew. Maybe he hadn’t taken off his mask, but added a more convincing and useful one.

Feeling powerless to his destiny and emotions was never Akira’s favorite, but it seemed to be his default state lately. Not only was he powerless in a corrupt system stacked against him, but he was powerless in his own mind. The powerlessness gave way to insecurities he thought he had buried when Arsene came to him: incompetence, weakness, irrationality. The realization of their unwelcome return sent another stampede through him. His contemplation had only provided respite for so long.

_Hands. Gripping, groping. Blood. Laughter. Pain. Pain again. Humiliation. Black. Darkness. Darkness._ The darkness seemed to mimic the encroaching twilight, muted by the cloudy, gray December sky. _Darkness. Alone._ His memories were folding his emotions into a pseudo-homogenized gunk of existential terror. _Alone. No one understands._

He lucked out with finding the Phantom Thieves—no, his friends—people who understood how incredibly fucked up the system was. But they couldn’t understand this and he wouldn’t wish them to. Hell, _he_ didn’t even understand this and it was happening to him. _Incompetent._ If he couldn’t save himself, how was he supposed to save anyone else? To protect the ones he loved? _Was this why Akechi had to die? Because I’m incompetent and weak. If only I had-_

A strangled noise escaped his throat without warning. He hated it—another manifestation of his weakness, another crack in the façade. _Goro Akechi died because of you. Did you even_ try _to save him?_ He didn’t know how long he could keep this up and his typical coping mechanism of drenching his pain in humor seemed unappealing.

Darkness was cascading, engulfing his mind as the dreary, hazy faux-darkness of winter city filled his room. He opened his eyes to welcome it as best he could, but was interrupted by the tiny, neon glow of star stickers speckling his ceiling. He never noticed them anymore as they’d been a permanent fixture since summer. A gift from Yusuke. Lighting his way once again, huh?

That reminded him of his unanswered text messages, giving him just enough incentive to pull himself out of the trench his mind had dug. Even if he felt alone, company would postpone the dread. Yusuke had texted him that afternoon asking him to accompany his people-watching. Akira hadn’t responded, and even though it was almost five hours later, and he had invites for the evening, he still shot Yusuke a text—a thank-you for extracting him from an emotional avalanche. Yusuke was one person Akira could stomach for extended periods, evidenced by their countless summer escapades.

**[Akira]:** _Hey. Sorry for getting back to you so late. Did you still want to hang out?_

Akira’s hands were shaking as he thumbed out the message, his labored breathing and the soft taps were deafening. Yusuke didn’t take long to reply and Akira thanked whatever god happened to be listening, as the rumination cycle was rearing and readying at the gate inside him.

**[Yusuke]:** _Certainly. I was just preparing to embark from Shibuya anyway. Would you like to convene at Leblanc or another location?_

**[Akira]:** _Leblanc is perfect. Thanks._

**[Yusuke]:** _Excellent. I will arrive shortly._

_Alright._ Now he had something to look forward to. A concrete plan with no room for ambiguity and contemplation. Just enough to distract and motivate. Akira slowly rose from his spot on the ground and decided he needed to make his room a bit less cave-like before Yusuke arrived.

***

“Ah, your dwelling is quite a bit more comfortable in the winter.”

Akira softly smiled in response to the man’s exclamation. A genuine smile—Yusuke had that effect on him. A surprisingly calming aura for someone who could be so high strung. He already felt himself closer to stability with the artist’s presence.

Yusuke took no time to make himself comfortable and seated himself on the edge of Akira’s bed, his thin legs folded on top of each other. They were at the level of mutual comfort that this action shouldn’t have been weird, but Akira still hesitated slightly. He’d always found the other man attractive and having him on his bed sparked a shiver he had to strain against. He chalked it up to his emotions running haywire—he’d condemned himself to Yusuke’s _friendzone_ long ago. Yusuke was just eccentric, maybe he didn’t realize the implications of his action. Regardless, people didn’t normally sit on his bed and the intimacy was foreign, but ultimately welcome. Especially now.

Yusuke raised a hand to his chin, elbow supported by an arm relaxed against crossed legs. He looked at his standing companion, expectant but serene. _There it is again_. _Calm Down._ Akira took the hint and tried his best to feign nonchalance as he joined Yusuke on the bed with a plop. His emotions were metastasizing into a chaotic clump in his chest when Yusuke halted them.

“So, was there something you had in mind with your invitation? I have to admit that is peculiar for you to request my presence in the evening.” Yusuke paused to conjure a smile, making the wheels that had begun to turn in Akira’s head stutter. “I hope all is well,” Yusuke started again, and locked eyes with Akira. The smile from before hadn’t faltered and the realization that Akira hadn’t planned anything, spurred frantic sifting through his brain for a viable response that wasn’t: _I need you to spew philosophy and aesthetic ramblings at me to distract from the Dark Shit I have going on._ Before he could contemplate his troubling lack of foresight and the _implications_ of inviting Yusuke to his room, he settled on:

“Ha, well, I kinda just wanted to chat.” He twirled his hair between his fingers as he spoke, a nervous tic people seemed to find endearing. He didn’t like doing it, especially when he spoke to people—it made him feel weak—but he figured it was a fair trade for a semblance of composure as he continued.

 “We haven’t had a lot of time to just hang out lately, and I know waiting for the Shido situation to resolve has _everyone_ on edge. Anyway, how’s that one painting going? The one you sketched the last time we hung out. How is it?” His ears, thankfully covered by curls, burned. His attempt to sound like the insightful leader he was expected to be contrasted with his ineloquent inability to _shut the fuck up._ The forced casualness felt as artificial as it was. He figured the acute cracks and imperfections in his disposition would surely catch the artist’s eye. It was a mistake, he chose the wrong thing again. _Incompetent._

Yusuke seemed to be processing Akira’s statement while his critical gaze scanned the other’s face. Anticipation wormed its way into Akira’s increasingly indiscernible collection of emotions and his heart was thumping out a beat that reminded him of the clubs in Shinjuku. Heavy, fast, and intimidating. _Calm down._ Yusuke averted his gaze to the shelf full of trinkets and souvenirs behind Akira.

“It is progressing smoothly enough,” Yusuke responded, “However, as of late, a personal matter has been distracting me from my work.” ‘Personal matter’ was given an emphasis that sounded strange in Yusuke’s mouth. Akira was struggling to read him and was hoping the man would elaborate before he was forced to respond. He was two-for-two on his wishes cast asunder that night because Yusuke did continue. Akira pushed back an irrational (could anything _truly_ be irrational at this point, though?) thought that told him the luck came with a price as Yusuke spoke.

“I would like to discuss this matter with you, since you have expressed your own desire for conversation. And like you have stated, the situation with Shido is…exacerbating things.” Yusuke’s gaze remained stagnant in its place beyond Akira, only altered by the furrowed brow the man wore. Akira exhaled. _Alright._ He could probably handle this. Nearly all his free time was spent helping people deal with their problems, and his whole life was structured by _fake it ‘til you make it_. Playing the role of disconnected psychologist was a tried and true method of dealing with others. So, with a bit more confidence, he responded, hoping to fulfill his earlier objective of distraction from an erratic centripetal force of anxiety.

“Of course, Yusuke. You know you can talk to me about whatever,” Akira assured him. He made certain to take his usual position for listening to problems—so normal that it happened almost automatically. His voice conveyed compassion and concern the best it could as he leaned in closer to imply an emotional closeness and security with a physical one. Calculated and practiced, just like he liked it. Yusuke returned the closeness by shifting himself to face Akira full-on, legs tucked neatly under him. Their eyes met again and Akira was surprised by a new, elusive emotion that had taken residence in the dark intensity. Akira’s confidence wavered.

“Akira,” Yusuke quietly started. He cast his eyes toward a loose string in the duvet beneath them and preoccupied himself with its removal as he continued. “I have engaged in a tremendous amount of reflection over the period of approximately six months. And following the ploy for Akechi—the subsequent announcement of your death,” He stopped and took a shaky breath. Though the string had been extracted, Yusuke’s eyes remained fixated on the spot. _He’s nervous._ Akira felt a pulse of anxiety at the realization, unsure whether it was just his own or the result of empathy. He had never seen Yusuke, his eternally assured, determined confidant waver quite like this. Sure, there were times when he doubted his own abilities—like everyone—but this particular uneasiness radiating from him was foreign to Akira. He ran through several options in his mind, but before he could vocalize any of them, Yusuke began again.

“I apologize, this is quite unlike me. I am…not versed in these matters,” he chuckled and it ended short with a slow, deliberate head turn. Their eyes locked for the third time that night, but this time, Yusuke’s cheeks hosted a soft pink that Akira felt his own face mirror. _This isn’t happening._ His eyes widened slightly as his mind kept landing on the same conclusion, no matter how many possibilities he ran. _Is he really-_

“You are aware that I am very fond of you. However, I believe that my fondness and affection may extend beyond the socially acceptable bounds of mere companionship,” Yusuke explained. His nervousness was apparent, but didn’t deter him from eye contact. _Holy shit._ “I have never felt this intensity for another until I met you, Akira.”

_This is a confession._ The way he said his name sent a stampede through Akira. The stampede apparently demolished his faculties as his mind kicked into overdrive. _Why would Yusuke feel this way? How? There was never any indication. Right?_ Akira mentally flipped through ever interaction they’d ever had, trying to discern where it happened. Where it could be interpreted as romantic. Was he really this naïve or was Yusuke _that_ good at hiding his feelings? The time in the boat at Inokashira was debatable at best, and Akira had attributed it to the man’s tendency toward social ineptitude. But those times at the planetarium, the compliments, _Desire and Hope—_

“Ah, I can see that the feelings are not exactly reciprocated. I should have known,” Yusuke mumbled. Akira’s thoughts threw on the emergency brakes, immediately grounded by the other’s voice. Yusuke was smiling with open disappointment, his head titled away and his eyes closed. Akira didn’t have time to both process and respond before Yusuke spoke again. Softer this time.

“My apologies. I do not wish to discomfort you further. Let us forget this encounter. I will be on my way.” Choppy and almost bitter. That unusual bitterness drove Akira to act.

In one fluid motion, that surprised even himself, Akira trapped Yusuke’s face in his hands—halting him in his attempt to rise from the bed. A few seconds of silence hung between them as their anxious, staggering breaths seemed to echo off the attic walls. Akira might have had private deficits in the confidence, leadership, and luck departments, but he prided himself on his timing. The intensity between them was coming to a head and Akira found his mark.

Lips on lips. Not the romantic, tender first kiss inculcated into his expectations from the media, but passionate nonetheless. It was sloppy, anticlimactic, and awkward. But it was _enough. More than enough._ Beyond his expectations in ways he didn’t know were possible. The kiss continued despite their shaking lips and shaking hands that found new residence in hair and cupped to burning cheeks.

It metamorphosed, fires stoked by the introduction of a tongue and some teeth. A heat boiled between them, hot enough to evacuate memories and feelings from earlier, at least for a moment. Akira needed this, _wanted_ this. And he needed Yusuke to need and want it too. His head swam with lust and _desire_. A desire for human affection and connection with someone he considered to be leagues ahead of him, but also a desire to _forget_.

And he got his wish—the third answered prayer of the night—and met no protest from Yusuke, who seemed to want it just as bad as he did.  He knew, somewhere in a portion of his brain usually doing overtime, that this was a bad idea. That acting before thinking always ended badly, and the recent development of his endless emotional rollercoaster ride was going to wound him for this later.

 

***

Despite the inexperienced fumbling, a cramp, and _the mess,_ it was incredible. Perhaps this was because neither of them had anything to compare to, or perhaps it actually was incredible. It didn’t matter to Akira. He could lose himself in another human, could live in a moment that didn’t require mental gymnastics. It was  like an altered state of consciousness; analogies between drugs and sex made sense to him now. He learned his corporeal capacity in the tangible universe, a stark difference from the ones in the Metaverse. It was humbling and terrifying and Akira tried not to think about it. His attempt to ignore his own existential reality was aided by the blurry, altered haze of desire.

He laid on his back, hair plastered to his forehead and flecked with the aftermath of their liaison. He lazily traced the lines of the plastic neon stars on his ceiling and thanked them for their role as a catalyst. His brain still swam with the afterglow of desire, but slowly came ashore, planted back in reality. The steadying breaths and radiating warmth of his bed companion aided in the endeavor.

“Akira,” Yusuke sighed, still out of breath. Akira fully turned to greet him and he started again. “You. You are… It was…Just magnificent, thank you.” The choppiness, like earlier, was unusual for him, but Akira forgave easily. The artist’s hair was damp, disheveled, and stark against the rosy face it framed. The flush had bled into the paper-white creases of his chest and shoulders, an estuary of lighter pinks spreading down further. Gleaming, calm half-lidded pools stared back at him. Yusuke maintained a smile, genuine and sweet. Affection and presumably oxytocin strobed through Akira as he returned the smile.

They ended up entwined, unsure who initiated the embrace. Akira’s face was pressed against the taller man’s neck—the skin sticking together there and _everywhere_. He smelled like a vague turpentine and something surprisingly earthy. His voice, though it was leisurely and gentle, through the contact, reverberated against Akira. His quiet musings about _aesthetics_ and _the human condition_ were lost in the aether of post-coital bliss—Akira’s own tranquil preoccupation with the breath of the other rustling his hair was leading him toward sleep. The hand tracing light, random boundaries on his back also acting as a sedative and a safety net.

He figured he should say something, as he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t tinged with sexual energy in the last several minutes, but he wanted to retain the illusion of normalcy and calm for as long as possible. Already, he felt an imminence. The thoughts perched on the edge of his consciousness, leering at him like ugly little gargoyles and planning their ambush. Yusuke thumbed over a mesa of keloid on his back and asked quietly about their origin. He ran his fingers over other outcroppings of scar tissue, suddenly aware of their severity and frequency, landing somewhere on Akira’s hips.

That was enough.

He stiffened, as he prepared for the carpet bombing. Yusuke was asking him again, but his cognitive grasp on reality was interrupted by the memories’ descent into his mind’s eye—the eye with its malfunctioning play, rewind, and repeat functions. _No. Calm down._ It was going to be worse and he was foolish for believing this would help—that dissolving himself in another person would heal his defective, defeated parts. He knew better; another foolish, incompetent mistake.

And that wasn’t even the worst part. He couldn’t handle this with Yusuke. He cared about him enough, but if Akira couldn’t handle the intimate parts of his own psyche, how was he supposed to meaningfully handle the intimate parts of another’s? Yeah, he was skilled in dealing with other people’s problems, but he was finding out that the intimacy involved in counseling friends was _quite_ distinct from the intimacy of _being inside someone._ Mostly, that intimacy entitles someone to minute details that Akira didn’t even like to spend time with alone, let alone bare to another. So, it wasn’t a Yusuke problem, but an intimacy problem. But either way, he was going to hurt someone with his incompetence. _Again._ Someone he swore to protect and genuinely cared for. Someone who one hundred percent did _not_ deserve to deal with his shit.

_Great,_ he was shaking.

_Blurry, looming monsters. No. Not monsters. Human. Only humans had this horrible power. None of it makes sense. Nothing ever makes sense. Shouting, laughter, flashes of pain. Blurs of hands and fists and groping and grabbing and pulling—_

“Akira! What is the matter?!” The exclamation yanked him out. A post-baptismal gasp of air. Just long enough to register the alarm and concern on Yusuke’s face. His hands gripping Akira’s bicep, creating karsts where his fingertips met the skin. _Gripping._ Here it came again. Scheduled. High tide. A Sisyphusian waking nightmare.

What did they inject him with? Why could he still feel it singe through his veins? He had more questions and no answers, and decided the ambiguity was torturing him more than whatever the fuck happened in that room. He could deal with something he knew about, but all he knew were disjointed shreds. Disjointed shreds—erring more on the side of surreal than real—were ruining his life. How was he supposed to save anyone if he was losing to strobing memories? Memories were just electrochemical events anyway, right? _Blood again. Blood everywhere. Smoke. Dark. The… Truth?_

Yusuke was crying. His hands, calloused from his work, were shaking as they cradled Akira’s face. Alarm open on his features, tears lingering on his bottom lashes like dew, dribbling down his face in neat lines when he blinked. The flush from earlier had transmogrified into a field of poppies against dark koi ponds, crowded with mystified panic swimming circles. A wildness that had been reserved for the Metaverse thus far was present, added to the unreality eclipsing Akira—the unreal feelings from the days prior seeming almost empirical. How was Yusuke still so beautiful—how did he embody art in his personhood? Akira hated that he was the creator of this surreal, excruciating project.

It was _enough_ again.

It was jarring enough to ground him in reality for another short burst of time. Enough time to act, enough of a problem to focus on. But this time it was _his_ problem, a direct consequence of his actions. He wasn’t fighting a deep injustice or some asshole adult, he had to clean up his own mess. He was the asshole, the destructive force. The destruction evident on Yusuke’s face—nearing cataclysmic, magnitude nine complete with foundational cracks and faults.

“I’m so sorry.” That was all he could manage at first. A low, hoarse whisper.  _Smooth. Eloquent._ He thought he could feel Arsene cringe (he really wished Arsene would step in if it offended him, instead of observing and tutting to himself like an estranged father). But that was all he had. He knew it meant nothing—no matter how much he begged it to mean something—and he supposed nothing really had meaning anyway.

Before Yusuke could respond, Akira broke his gaze, the contact, and presumably the other man’s heart as he rolled out of bed to find his discarded clothing. The tension hung like a tapestry, woven with threads of confused distress and lining the walls of not only the attic but Akira’s own self-fortifications.

“What is the meaning of this? What is the matter? Please, let us discuss this,” Yusuke plead, a smallness in the ache of his voice. It was uncanny. It was _wrong_. A disturbance of the familiarity that framed his survival was surging. Yusuke had risen, and even though he could feel the artist reaching for him, he flinched when cold fingertips grazed his still-bare shoulder. It warranted a recoil that allowed Akira space to mechanically re-dress his lower half.

His analytic faculty rebooted to run through options, but the system failure from before had lain a thick layer of dust. He was off kilter. It frustrated him—his sharpness was his crutch—and putting all his cognitive eggs into the basket of _focusing_ was riskier than he’d like. Had the malfunction infected every reasonable facet of his mind like some kind of anxiety superbug? He couldn’t handle that, but he’d never admit it. He’d honestly rather die—

“Why are you apologizing?!” Yusuke’s frustrated exclamation broke through his disordered contemplation. More wrongness. Akira realized he had been repeating a mantra of _sorry—_ an empty prayer for salvation—while he half-leaned, half-anchored against his window sill. Hands gripped the ledge—action cinematic style—like he was the villain holding on and expecting the hero to pull him up for a fair fight. But he didn’t want help and he wished Yusuke would just let him fall to his demise—prolonged and painful, a fitting end for his evil.

But Yusuke was too good. Or maybe too naïve, as any of their other friends surely would have taken the hint by now. But it _had_ to be Yusuke. Sensitive, but passionate and kind Yusuke. God _damnit._ His hands were delicate and cool on his back and Akira used his faint exhales as a metronomic honing beacon. He knew couldn’t look at him, but the embers from earlier had morphed into a wildfire—a careless mistake—and they were both going to die in the conflagration if he didn’t do _something._

“You should probably go,” Akira started, still low and hoarse, but backed with a new resolve he attributed to damage-control. A sound that resembled a squeak emerged from the other man and he probably would have chuckled if the circumstances were different. A silence insulated them, an iron maiden, a sarcophagus. The after-the-storm respite of their unity seemed like a lifetime ago as a foreboding before-the-storm stillness took its place. Anticipation. Inevitable devastation.

Yusuke had started stringing words together, but they died on his lips. Akira felt movement behind him, but he didn’t—couldn’t—move to look. He must have gotten the hint and Akira was relieved he didn’t have to explain any further—at least for the time being. The artist may have been awkward and eccentric, but he wasn’t brainless. The slow, deliberate taps of Yusuke’s bare feet on the floorboards seeped through the silence. Rustling, breathing—breathing harder than a casual task like getting dressed should warrant. They were staccato, wedged between what Akira assumed to be sobs. Everything in his torso seemed to contort in response, but, despite that, the siege on his psyche seemed momentarily subdued.

He looked up. It was dark beyond his window, the last streaks of twilight tucked away under the blanket of night. The overhead light of his room backlit him, causing a reflection rather than a sleepy Yongen-Jaya beyond. There was a disconnect between what he was seeing and what he expected himself to look like. He truly had mastered the stoicism—he looked almost identical to normal with minor discrepancies: a blooming love bite, an overly rigid jaw, and eyes with only a fraction of the panic he was concealing. Arsene seemed to approve. Akira felt nauseated.

The image blurred as it reached farther into the room, but Akira could still discern the outline of Yusuke’s thin, defeated body as he gathered both his belongings and his composure. Once he finished—Akira still fastened in the same position—Yusuke stopped. He wearily raised his arms to capture the scene in a forefinger and thumb bordered photo for his eidetic scrapbook. His shoulders hunched more than usual, it looked _wrong_ , and Akira could barely detect a tremble in the warped doppelgänger of the reflection. He had forgotten how quiet Yusuke was when he wasn’t comfortable. It was a genre of alienation he wasn’t familiar with.

“Farewell, then.” It was a soft cold. A winter wind blossomed into an artic cyclone swirling around them and looming large. It would surely run its course once Yusuke had escaped to safety. It’s what Akira deserved—to freeze and suffer alone for his pathetic attempt at self-preservation. He wrestled with an impulse to stop the other from leaving. To barrel down the stairs with an elaborate, flamboyant routine. To bar his way, apologizing and embracing, hoping to melt the freezing fractions of Yusuke’s heart before they necrotized. To live up to his role as Helper, Healer, Friend, Leader, _Joker._

But he wasn’t Joker. Joker lived and thrived in the Metaverse. Joker was a pipe dream Akira had for himself. Akira Kurusu lived in the attic of a failing café, awkward and trembling before his own anxieties. Akira Kurusu was a sixteen-year-old kid who couldn’t deal with his own emotions and hurt people like a _fucking hypocrite._ Akira Kurusu hated himself and he deserved it.

Downstairs, the café door slammed shut. Inside, he felt something fracture. He had royally fucked up his friendship with Yusuke and he was unsure if he could mend it. And like an atomic bomb, the introspective initial blast was followed by a greater external one. The contortion from earlier blew apart and Akira discovered that the plaster lining the walls of the attic were strong, but not _too_ strong. It took a solid punch to break, splitting off and cracking haphazardly. Unfortunately, the concrete behind the window’s plaster was not as easily moved. His knuckles bled and his hand immediately chastised him, but he wasn’t done. He deserved it. Arsene seemed pleased, overjoyed even, at his rage. Another blow to the wall, this time above the sofa, between the angled planks. Dust and paint chips fluttered and found rest in the sofa’s upholstery. It was a brief rest, interrupted by a deluge of blood congealing the debris into streaks of murky, vermillion sludge. Against the mustard yellow of the sofa, they looked almost like claw marks on skin.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?! Why are you screaming?” a shrill, barely intelligible voice squeaked behind him. Morgana stared up at him from the table in irritation and bewilderment. He was screaming?

“Look what you’ve done! How are you going to explain this to Chief?! Akira!” He scolded him, a barrage of questions hurling and landing somewhere beyond his comprehension. Huffing, eyes forward, the only thing he comprehended was his self-loathing alchemized into rage. The raging of the pain in his hand and the cat to his front were lost.

Starting to come down, he realized the hole. It was a lot larger than he anticipated, outlined with jagged bits of hinged drywall. Detailed with smaller, spiderweb cracks capturing spattering of blood like prey. The fluffy, pink insulation peeked out from the shadows, it looked raw and almost self-conscious. Much like his eyes post-interrogation, the mangled wrongness of the wall in front of him conjured images of Mementos. Another wrongness that was his creation.

He hadn’t realized Morgana had stopped his lecture and was staring at him, waiting for Akira to produce anything that proved he hadn’t vacated his corporeal form for a higher metaphysical plane. And even though Akira had felt a bit _untethered_ since the interrogation, and the past couple hours had certainly had him feeling borderline psychotic—he was still there. As the throbbing of his hand doubled as a metronome flipping into double-time, the situation materialized. He was out of breath and exhausted despite doing marginally less than he was accustomed to and he coughed a couple times as residual rib pain seemed to become more than residual.

“Shit,” Akira finally sputtered out between coughs. He sat on the floor, legs carelessly folded, for the second time that night. Morgana, still on the table, now loomed over, his expression changing from annoyance to concern and his voice following suit.

“Are you alright? And why are you half-naked?” Morgana pressed him, gentle but persistent. The coughing had done a sufficient job of slowing him and he cradled his fist, blood juxtaposing the intense pules of pain—both of which he expected less. The injury didn’t warrant an awkward phone call to Takemi, but it was going to impact his fine motor skills for a while. He watched the blood escape through his fingers to a spot between his naked abdomen and jeans as the cat sighed.

Morgana leapt from the table to a cardboard box creatively labeled _Metaverse Med Supplies_ in thick, black marker and rifled through it—his hind legs and tail peeking out. He emerged with an array of bandages, gauze, and another Relax Gel in his mouth. The scene reminded Akira of the morning after the nightmare and he hated it. _Incompetent._ Morgana dropped the contents at Akira’s side, landing with a slight smack.

“You can do this yourself, right?” His words, though harsh, took on a parental character.  Akira nodded in affirmation and fingered the gauze with his non-bleeding hand—leaving his other hand hovering over his abdomen’s makeshift blood reservoir, dripping in small, but frequent drops that reminded him of the coffee percolators downstairs.

As Akira wordlessly tended to his hand, Morgana applied the Relax Gel like he had the one morning—the gel working its magic without giving Akira much time to protest. Not like Morgana would have given him a chance to complain, speaking as he worked.

“So, are we going to talk about what happened or are you going to try to fix the wall and act like it was nothing?” He sounded snarky, but Akira couldn’t blame him. Another person that had to deal with his bullshit. He sighed and pushed through a fog of swirling, exhausting emotions enveloping his brain for a response; his typical archives of interaction scattered carelessly. The day had been an earthquake, but at least the memories had stopped.

“I’d prefer the last one,” he replied in a quiet monotone. He paused, saw Morgana’s annoyance, and continued. “But I know that won’t satisfy you.” He kept his attention turned to dressing his fist—bruises surfacing his skin like temporary tattoos of watercolor blues and purples. _Watercolor. Blue._ His stomach dropped like a callback to Dome City, but nothing brewed.

“Then what happened,” Morgana half-asked, half-demanded. Akira finished with his cleanup while he answered, deciding to allow the story to spill from him unhindered by deliberation. He didn’t have the energy.

“So, basically, I’ve been on edge from the Shido shit,” his monologue briefly interrupted to grab another cloth. He realized the blood had mixed with some _remnants_ painting his chest from earlier. It was disgusting, despite the slight exhibitionist thrill, and he sincerely hoped Morgana hadn’t noticed. He continued his exposition regardless.

“And I invited Yusuke over to hang out. Things got messy between us.” Akira tried not to put too much emphasis on _messy._ The implication seemed too obvious. “He left and I got upset and here we are,” he concluded. The timing matched with the last cloth being added to the damp collection piled next to him. He absently mused over how to remove blood from clothes and upholstery. Maybe he’d ask Takemi. Or the Internet, depending on his shame in the morning.

“Wait, what happened between you and Yusuke?” Apparently, the implication was not as obvious as it seemed. He couldn’t fault Morgana, though. Especially because Akira had never explicitly referenced his desire for same-sex liaisons. But nothing could be awkward between them at this point, right? Nevertheless, Akira preoccupied himself with inspecting the wall(s) and finding an immediate solution that didn’t involve D.I.Y. carpentry. The way he stood and observed the hole reminded him of the way he stood when viewing art (or people) with Yusuke. Another pang. _Calm Down._

“Well, uh”, he started. Truly he was the debonair others pegged him to be. Debonairs _definitely_ got embarrassed explaining themselves to their cats. “Why do you think I’m half-naked?” Akira feigned indifference in his voice, the words only running together slightly. After a few microseconds that felt like hours, a knowing, elongated “oh” indicated to him that at least Morgana’s sharpness wasn’t failing _him_. It seemed like a satisfactory explanation to the cat because he proclaimed:

“You should get some sleep once you deal with that.” Even though he wasn’t looking, he could hear the discomfort veiled loosely with concern and authority in Morgana’s voice. But after covering the wall with a tacky Phantom Thieves of Heart poster, that was what he did. He deliberately ignored the group chats, potential outcomes, and anxiety-laced memories as he prayed for sleep despite a throbbing in his wrist and brain.

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: Implied/Referenced Torture, Blood, Injury, Violence, PTSD (including dissociation, flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, avoidance), Non-Explicit Sex, Sex between underage people, patterns of thought that could be considered OCD, anxiety loops, repetition, self-deprecation, overanalyzation/rumination, self-destructive behaviors, very mild suicidal ideation


End file.
